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tech.com
September, 2016
Reinventing the Spring-Loaded Probe Pin
By Jeff Elliott F
or decades the spring-loaded probe, or pogo- style pin has delivered excellent mechanical and electrical performance in a highly-com-
pliant contact. However, this often came at a high cost given that each pin is constructed of three to four discrete parts manufactured and assembled in a laborious, less-than-fully-automated process. The cost can be so exorbitant that when significant volumes of pins are required, many opt to reduce costs by using less-compliant, lower-performance alternative contact technologies. This approach is becoming less viable, howev-
er, with the increasing miniaturization of integrat- ed circuits, electronic components and devices that pack more circuitry into smaller footprints. A single test socket for reliability and burn-in
testing, for example, can require hundreds and even thousands of spring-loaded probe pins in a fine pitch configuration. The same applies to board-to-board compression connectors. When fac- toring in multiple test sockets as well as produc- tion-level quantities of connectors, pin quantities can run into the millions.
“A new approach to pin design is
allowing high-temperature, current and bandwidth performance in a miniature size.”
With a new approach to pin design and a com-
plete reinvention of the manufacturing process, miniaturized spring probes as small as 0.2 mm (0.0079 in.) are now available that provide a high temperature, current and bandwidth performance pin at the price of a stamped contact.
Close-up of an H-pin showing spring system.
means it is designed to compress or “comply” dur- ing insertion. This is critical when attempting to maintain a good connection despite uneven sur- faces, varying heights, errors in parallelism and flatness, or pivoting or rotating elements. Although compliancy can be achieved by
other techniques, such as bends, buckles, or can- tilever-style contacts, additional space between pins is required during compression. Spring- loaded pins operate in a purely vertical fashion, so the maximum space occupied at any time is de- fined by its diameter. This allows for placement of spring-loaded pins in fine pitch distances as low as 0.2 mm (0.0079 in.). “Devices used to have 2,000 pins in a two inch
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Traditional Pogo-Style Pins Although designed and manufactured in sub-
tly different ways, the pogo-style pin is typically constructed of a pin, two plungers and a spring en- capsulated in a metal shell. This style of pin is highly-compliant, which
square area. Now they want the same 2,000 pins in a one-half inch square and the only way to do that is to reduce the pitch of the device,” says Ila Pal, chief operations officer of Ironwood Electron- ics, a manufacturer of high-speed sockets and adaptors for characterization, burn-in, and pro- duction testing. “We were utilizing spring probe pins on a 1
mm pitch design and more recently at 0.5 mm,” ex- plains Pal. “Then, last year, there were requests to shrink the pitch to 0.4 mm. Now, we are moving even further down to 0.35 mm.” Germany-based test socket manufacturer EP
Ants GmbH is experiencing the same market trend. According to Rick Taylor, president and co- founder, 70 to 80 percent of the test sockets his company creates are for high-density applications. According to Taylor, another market driver is
price. Higher density means a higher volume of pins per test socket. Multiply that by the number of sockets required for parallel or serial testing at a single facility and customers expect companies such as EP Ants to deliver the best possible price without sacrificing performance. “As everything gets smaller and the density
gets tighter, pin counts are increasing,” says Tay- lor. “At the same time, our customers expect to re- duce their costs. So we challenge ourselves to find ways to manufacture our sockets at an achievable price whenever possible.”
The H-Pin Delivering high performance at a significant-
ly lower price, the H-pin is a stamped spring probe with the mechanical, electrical and thermal per-
Continued on next page
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